


do not need nobody to help me (lies)

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s01e21 Ragtag, F/M, Grant Ward Isn't Hydra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27072649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: On the last word, Fitz hits the button, setting off the EMP. In response, Garrett cries out and staggers, which Jemma expected…and Ward claps a hand to his face, which she decidedly did not.…Wait.Wait.It’s not just his face he’s covering.“Fuck,” he bites out.It’s hiseye.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward
Comments: 15
Kudos: 149





	do not need nobody to help me (lies)

**Author's Note:**

> Ta-da! Welcome to WEEK FORTY-TWO, Y'ALL!!! Cutting it a little close on this one, but at least I got it done! And now I have only TEN WEEKS TO GO, can you BELIEVE?! I can't believe I made it this far.
> 
> **Warning** for discussion of rape and threats thereof. Doesn't and won't happen, but the possibility gets referenced.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! Thanks for sticking with me this year! <3 <3 <3

Jemma’s heart is beating so loudly, it’s a miracle she catches any of the conversation at all.

“You know me,” Fitz says, thumb hovering above the joy buzzer, “always joking around.”

On the last word, he hits the button, setting off the EMP. In response, Garrett cries out and staggers, which Jemma expected…and Ward claps a hand to his face, which she decidedly did _not_.

…Wait. _Wait_. It’s not just his face he’s covering.

“Fuck,” he bites out.

It’s his _eye_.

Oh, Lord.

“Bloody hell,” Fitz whispers.

Even as they reel, however, Ward is exploding into action. He shoots the two agents behind them before Jemma even realizes he’s drawn his gun, pivots to shoot Garrett (who’s collapsed against an armchair and obviously well on his way to death already) in the back, and then turns again to face them.

It all happens so quickly. Three men dead and Jemma still hasn’t caught her breath from the shock of realization.

As a result, her “Ward…” comes out weak and thready.

Of course, even with three men dead, they’re far from safe on a Bus full of Hydra agents. It’s just as well Ward doesn’t bother to wait for her to find an end to that pathetic beginning. He only spares a moment to reload his gun, and then he’s pushing between her and Fitz, headed for the kitchen—and the many alarmed agents therein.

“Lock down the cabin,” he orders as he runs—but despite the urgency of the situation and his tone both, it takes the _crack_ of another gunshot to spur Jemma into motion.

“Right,” she says, and grabs Fitz’s hand. “Lockdown, come on!”

She has to pull him along to the briefing room—he’s still just as frozen as she was—but once they’re actually inside of it, he shakes off his own shock.

“I _knew_ it,” he crows, even as he pulls up the emergency protocols on the holocom. “Didn’t I say, Simmons? Didn’t I say he must have one of those bloody eyes?”

“Yes,” she agrees hollowly. Her heart is somewhere in the vicinity of her knees, she thinks; it certainly isn’t in her chest where it belongs. Fitz _did_ keep insisting there must be more to Ward’s betrayal. He never doubted it.

But she did. Right from the start, she was so quick to believe—

This isn’t the time.

The Bus’ lockdown protocols are relatively new, a result of the hijacking they experienced in Peru. It allows them to close and seal all access points between the cargo and cabin levels remotely, as well as providing a method of _unsealing_ them without blowing any holes in the plane.

It’s the sealing that matters now, of course. No doubt there are dozens more Hydra agents in the cargo level—they’re everywhere, like a bloody infestation of cockroaches on their Bus—and Ward can’t fight them _all_ , not alone. Better to trap them downstairs and leave them there until…

Until what?

“And lockdown,” Fitz says—unnecessarily. Even from here, the _thunk-hiss_ of the door to the catwalk slamming shut and sealing is audible, leaving the unknown infestation of Hydra agents trapped below…

…and Jemma, Fitz, and Ward trapped up here with a good two dozen more.

That number is decreasing by the moment, as Ward handles the enemy agents with ruthless efficiency (and, she should think, no little helping of pent-up resentment and rage), but there are still far too many for comfort. He’s dangerously outnumbered.

Fortunately, the emergency drills Ward spent months making them run actually addressed this precise eventuality. She supposes they owe him an apology for mocking his paranoia—but that will have to wait.

For now…

“Emergency plan delta?” she asks Fitz.

He glances out at the fight happening in the kitchen, and they wince as one as a bullet grazes far too closely along Ward’s side.

“Delta,” he agrees. “You hide, I’ll throw?”

“Please,” she scoffs, moving past him to open the weapons cabinet beside the screen. “I’m the far superior bowler, as well you know.”

“Superior to whom?” he fires back at once.

It’s not the time for it, but the familiar banter settles her a bit, enough so to steady her hands as she types in the code for the cabinet. Everything else can be left for later; right now, they need to do as Ward trained them.

“To you,” she says, a bit belatedly, as she retrieves the dendrotoxin grenades from their drawer. “Skye’s pod?”

He rolls his eyes, but—after another darted glance at Ward’s dire straits—doesn’t argue further. He knows she _is_ the better bowler of the two of them; he’s just as like to land a grenade in the lounge as in the kitchen.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re going for yours?”

“It’s close enough,” she says. “And a good position to throw from.” She shifts the grenades to one arm, cradling them against her body so she can reach out and squeeze Fitz’s hand. “Be careful.”

“You be careful,” he shoots back. “Don’t throw yourself on any more of those.”

It’s her turn to roll her eyes but, conscious of the time they’re wasting, she chooses not to respond.

“Go,” she orders instead.

Fitz squeezes her hand once, then inches around the holocom to the far door. He takes a deep breath, visibly steels himself—and then sprints across the lounge to Skye’s bunk. The motion obviously draws attention from the remaining Hydra agents, as there’s a bit of shouting, but fortunately, Ward has them all well occupied. None of them give chase.

The door to Skye’s bunk slams closed, and there’s the briefest flicker of orange light as the barrier around the top is activated.

Fitz is safe.

Now, for Ward.

Jemma’s bunk is right beside the briefing room, just a handful of steps from the door closer to the kitchen. The _closer to the kitchen_ bit is both pro and con here—it gives her the opening to throw the grenades, but means she’s more at risk of attracting violence when she moves.

Ward is pinned in the space between the table and the island, trying to fight four men at once. The sight of him taking a punch to the face steels her resolve. One deep breath, two, and she darts across the space to her bunk.

No gunfire or shouts erupt. That’s a bit of luck.

Unfortunately, that was the easy part. Now for the harder one.

She spares a few precious seconds to ensure the grenades are primed and ready, prepared to blow on impact, and then a few more to bring up the privacy settings on her pod’s control panel. As soon as she closes the door, the barrier sealing the empty space around the top of the pod will spring into place. It’s designed primarily to cut off sound and provide privacy, but serves a wonderful secondary safety function.

With the barrier active, the dendrotoxin won’t be able to reach her—or Ward, if he can get to his own pod in time.

In order to do that, he needs a warning.

So, privacy settings and grenades all ready to go, Jemma gets to the most dangerous bit of this plan—one she imagines Fitz didn’t entirely think through, or else she’d have faced much more of a fight on being the one to do it.

She stands in the door of her bunk, takes a deep breath, and shouts, “Ward! Delta!”

Adrenaline does strange things to a person, as Jemma has had several occasions to discover since joining this team. Her mind, under the rush of stress- and fear-related hormones, perceives what happens next in a series of almost still images:

The Hydra agents on the outskirts of the crowd around Ward, prevented from reaching him by the confined space, turn to her.

Ward shoots his nearest opponent in the face.

Several of the Hydra agents now aware of her proximity start to move toward her.

Ward, astonishingly, kicks off the kitchen island and _leaps_ over the table and its attached booth.

Jemma raises her grenades, one in each hand.

Ward hurtles into his pod, close enough to the table that he needs only one foot on the ground after his leap to reach it.

Jemma throws her grenades.

Ward slams his pod door shut.

A Hydra agent is inches from Jemma’s own door, close enough his fingers skim her sleeve as he reaches for her.

Jemma slams her door shut.

It all happens in a matter of seconds, of course, but it seems to take _years_. Gratifyingly, the dendrotoxin works instantaneously no matter her perception; before the nearest Hydra agent can even finish his reach for her door, he falls. They _all_ do.

Jemma slumps against the door, resting her forehead against the glass of the one-way window, and tries to catch her breath.

They’re safe.

For now.

…

To her relief, Ward has a plan for dealing with the agents in the cargo hold, and it’s refreshingly straightforward. He opens the hatch to the ladder near the cockpit, drops another two grenades down, and waits for the clouds of dendrotoxin to dissipate. Then he opens the bulkhead door and throws yet another two grenades into the cargo bay, just in case.

While he does so, Jemma and Fitz team up to drag the unconscious agents on the cabin level into the Cage. They’re both far outweighed by each agent, so it’s slow going, and they’re only a third of the way done when Ward confirms (via the internal security feed) that all of the agents in the hold are down.

Jemma looks at him, looks at the still numerous agents on the kitchen floor, and tries not to whimper.

“I’ll handle them,” Ward promises. A few weeks ago, she would have expected him to be visibly amused, but it’s not precisely a surprise that right now, he just looks tired. “You two keep at it up here.”

Jemma wants to protest, but knows better than to actually do so. The last thing they need is unsecured enemy agents regaining consciousness at a critical moment. Everything else must wait until their enemies are completely handled.

By the time the assorted Hydra agents (healthy-but-unconscious, near-dead, and actually dead alike, including Garrett) are all secured in the Cage, Jemma is aching all over. Fitz’s groan as he collapses onto the couch suggests he’s in similar condition.

Unfortunately, there’s no time for that.

“Up you get,” she orders. “We should help Ward.”

He grumbles and groans, but doesn’t truly protest, and the two of them hurry downstairs, where—after a bit of searching—they find Ward in the act of sealing the medpod.

“Not as secure as the Cage,” Fitz observes, uneasily, as they join him at the door.

“No,” Ward agrees. “Which is why I’m gonna drop it once we’re in the air.”

Jemma shudders at the thought. Ward pats her on the shoulder.

“I’ll stay low when I do it,” he promises. “The pod is designed to float in case of emergency evac; as long as we’re not too high, they’ll be fine.”

“Right,” she says, and pushes thoughts of her own fall from the Bus away. He’s right, after all—and she has a far greater concern than the fates of men who work willingly for Hydra. “Lab. Now.”

Ward blinks. “I know it’s probably been a while since you two got to science, but—”

Fitz snorts.

“Not for science,” she snaps, “for _medical attention_. _Now_ , Ward.”

“Simmons—”

“No,” she says sternly. “We have _no idea_ what sort of failsafes that eye might have. Who knows what it’s programmed to do in the event of exposure to an EMP? I need to scan it and then, while Fitz studies the scans, _you_ need stitches.”

He looks about to protest further, but settles instead into a wry smile. “I thought you’d missed that.”

“I didn’t.” She points commandingly in the direction of the lab. “Now march.”

He raises his hands innocently and, under her insistent frown, turns and starts for the lab. Jemma trails him closely the whole way, more than half-afraid he’ll drop dead at any moment. They know so little about Cybertek’s implants, there’s truly no telling.

…

Ward is kind enough not to comment on the way her hands tremble as she scans his skull, though she sees him noticing. (Fitz doesn’t comment, either, though he does squeeze her hand in passing as she delivers her scans to him for examination.)

The bullet graze on his right side takes five stitches, after which she cleans the cut on his face (it’s reopened again, and she can say now with confidence that it will _assuredly_ scar) and frowns at him until he agrees to ice his knee.

Then she’s out of excuses to stall, and it’s time for the second thing she owes Ward—less urgent than medical attention, but no less important.

“I’m sorry,” she says…to his knee, which is a shameful attempt to hide. Jemma forces her eyes up to meet Ward’s—forces herself to take in the blankness of the left one—and repeats, “I’m sorry.”

Ward frowns. “For what?”

“For believing you were—that you could _ever_ be—a traitor.”

His frown melts into an unbearably soft expression, something sad and gentle that brings tears to her eyes. She doesn’t deserve the concern written all over his face.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he says.

“Yes, I do,” she disagrees. Her tears try to well over, but she forces them back. “Fitz—he never believed it for a moment. From the very first, he insisted…well, the truth. That you’d been given one of the Cybertek eyes and were only working for Garrett against your will. But I was so quick to think—”

“—exactly what I wanted you to,” he interrupts, and catches her hands before she can tear the little square of gauze she’s been absently worrying at any further to shreds. “I had a cover, and I made you believe it. You don’t need to apologize for me being good at my job, Simmons.”

The last bit is said wheedlingly, with a little sideways smile that invites her to laugh at his casual arrogance. It only increases Jemma’s urge to cry.

“You don’t understand,” she says. It’s frustrating, but not surprising, that her voice cracks in the middle. “It wasn’t just when you found us in that shack. It was before I even laid eyes on you. As soon as Skye told us—”

A firm squeeze of her hands cuts her off.

“Simmons,” Ward says. “Listen to me. I _terrorized_ Skye.” His throat works silently for a moment. “I kidnapped her, I played on all her worst fears and insecurities, and I threatened to…”

He trails off rather than name the threats he made against Skye. Even so, the reminder is enough to make Jemma flinch despite herself.

“I did _everything I could_ ,” he continues, “to convince her that I was Hydra. And I knew when I did it that it would work on the rest of you, too.”

“It didn’t work on Fitz,” she protests—a bit weakly—and Ward’s good eye tracks in his direction. (Eerily, the dead Cybertek one remains fixed on her.)

“Yeah,” he says. “Somehow I’m guessing he didn’t get the whole story.”

Well, no. That much is true. It was just the two of them, Jemma and Skye, curled up under the covers in the bed they shared at that motel in Los Angeles, when Skye confessed everything Ward had done. When she shook and shook in Jemma’s arms as she recounted the cold, easy way he threatened her.

_“He said he could hurt me. That he could break me with one hand. But that we were_ friends _and he liked me, so probably he’d just s-strip me and tie me down and—”_

She never cried, but her blank, distant expression was somehow worse than tears would have been.

That was what convinced Jemma, it’s true, and Fitz never heard a word of it.

And with Skye’s awful, hollow voice in mind, she has to ask, “Why did you? Threaten her, I mean?”

He squeezes her hands once more and then lets go.

“John gave me a choice,” he says. “Either I could scare Skye into cooperating, or he’d hand her over to the guys—the _willing_ Hydra agents—and let them take their turns seeing if they could do it.” His jaw works silently. “I chose to scare her—and because I was working under a time limit, I chose to do it in the quickest, easiest way I could.”

“Well,” she says, for lack of anything else, “it certainly worked.”

“I know.” He looks away. “I owe her an apology—a lot of apologies.” His eye snaps back to Jemma. “Unless she doesn’t wanna see me. I’d understand, and I’d leave. Tell her she just has to say the word, okay?”

Part of her wants to protest. It’s hardly fair that Ward should have to leave after being forced into working for the enemy against his will, after all. But the rest of her remembers that it’s hardly fair Skye had to be traumatized to spare her a worse fate, either, and so she only nods.

“I will,” she says.

Ward exhales slowly. “Thanks.”

Jemma lets that sit for a moment before she adds, “I’m still sorry.”

“Simmons—”

“Not for doubting you,” she says, cutting him off with a raised hand. “You’re right, it’s hardly my fault you’re so good at espionage. But…I’m sorry that you were forced to do that. That a man you trusted and respected _enslaved_ you and made you work against us. Made you hurt someone you care about. For that, I’m very sorry.”

His smile at her echo of his earlier words is quick to fade. Much slower is his hand, which comes up to brush along the sore, throbbing spot beneath her right eye.

“More than one someone,” he says, voice low and pained.

She catches his hand and pulls it down and away.

“You didn’t hurt me,” she says.

“Not directly,” he agrees. “But I let it happen.”

Jemma thinks of the shack, of how quickly he turned away after the Hydra agent—Cordey, was his name—backhanded her. At the time, she filed it away as further evidence of Ward’s lack of care for them. Now she wonders whether he was struggling with the urge to retaliate.

Likely, she decides. During their hunt for Coulson after his kidnapping, Ward decked one of Hand’s agents who simply made a crude comment about Jemma. No doubt he’d have done worse to Cordey if given the option.

“You didn’t have a choice,” she reminds him.

“Yeah, I did,” he says. “I’m a trained specialist and that jackass was just a grunt. Level 2 cannon fodder. I could’ve broken his neck faster than my handler could’ve hit the switch.”

“And gotten yourself _killed_?” she demands. “Of course you couldn’t have.”

“Could and _should_ have,” he says darkly. “I put saving my own neck before protecting you—”

“—from a single blow!” she says over him, incensed. “A simple bruise is not worth your _life_ , Ward!”

“Isn’t it?” he asks, stealing the breath from her.

“Ward…”

“The man I wanna be,” he says, suddenly quiet, “the man I _thought_ I was…he never would’ve worked for Hydra just to save his own skin. Never would’ve stood by and let people be hurt. But I did.” He scoffs, somewhat half-heartedly. “Guess I’m John’s man through and through after all. Self-preservation’s just too well ingrained.”

Oh, _Ward_.

Jemma’s heart physically aches. Worse than the throbbing, developing bruise on her face, worse than her arms after dragging all those men to the Cage…her heart hurts. For a moment, she’s entirely at a loss of what to say.

Then she remembers that while Skye has spent the past week safely sheltered within their team, receiving comfort and love at every turn, Ward has spent it trapped with the enemy—turned into a wind-up soldier by a man he once regarded as a father.

With that in mind, there’s really only one thing she _can_ do.

She steps forward, wraps her arms around him, and squeezes tightly—so tightly she can feel his breath catch in his chest.

“I’m glad,” she says against his temple.

This close, his swallow is audible. “For what?”

“That you’re the man you are,” she says. “That you played along instead of dying heroically.” She holds him a little tighter—partially to comfort him, partially to combat her own awkwardness at his failure to return the gesture. “Perhaps it would have been the Captain America thing to do, resisting and making them kill you, but I’d _much_ rather have you do awful things to survive than die a martyr.”

Ward has stopped breathing, she thinks, and hopes it’s only temporary.

“We all would,” she continues. “I’m confident I can speak for the team in that. Please, please don’t blame yourself for doing what you had to do to save your own life.” She squeezes him again. “I’ll be grateful every day that you did.” Remembering what similar words once meant to her, she finishes with, “We’d hate to lose you, Grant.”

He lets out a long breath and, slowly, his arms come up. Carefully, gently, so heartbreakingly hesitantly, he returns her embrace. It tightens a little after a moment, and when she impulsively kisses his temple, his head drops forward to rest against her shoulder.

Across the lab, Fitz gives her a thumbs-up, indicating the scans raised no concerns and Ward should be fine until they can get the now-defunct implant out. Then he sets his tablet aside and quietly leaves.

Jemma stands there, holding Ward, supporting him, for a very long time.


End file.
